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gather myself?’
    The guard nodded.
    Her hands were trembling as she stood aside a little to let the other visitors pass. She took several deep breaths, leaned her back against one of the great stone columns and calmed her thoughts. It was an idle threat, that was all. The villain could not truly hurt her father within the security of a prison as tough and rigorous as the Tolbooth. The man was a villain, a thief, trying to frighten her into stealing for him. And Phoebe had no intention of being blackmailed. She tucked some stray strands of hair beneath her bonnet, and smoothed a hand over the top of her skirts. And only when she was sure that her papa would not notice anything amiss did she make her way through the doorway that led tothe prison cells. Once through that door she passed the guard her basket for checking.
    He removed the cover and gave the contents a quick glance. ‘Raspberries this week, is it?’ With her weekly visits over the last six months Phoebe was on friendly terms with most of the guards and turnkeys.
    ‘They are my papa’s favourite.’
    ‘Sir Henry’ll fair enjoy them.’
    ‘I hope so.’ She smiled and followed him up the narrow staircase all the way up to the debtors’ cells on the third floor in which her father was held.
    But the smile fled her face and the raspberries were forgotten the moment she entered the cell.
    ‘Papa!’ She placed the basket down on the small wooden table and ran to him. ‘Oh, my word! What ever has happened to you?’ She guided him to stand in the narrow shaft of sunlight that shone down into the cell through the bars of the small high window. And there in the light she could see that the skin around Sir Henry’s left eye was dark with bruising and so swollen as to partially conceal the bloodshot eye beneath. The bruising extended over the whole left side of his face, from his temple to his chin, and even on that side of his mouth his lower lip was swollen and cut.
    ‘Now, child, do not fuss so. It is nothing but the result of my own foolish clumsiness.’
    But the man’s words were ringing in her head again.
Dangerous place is the Tolbooth. All sorts of unsavoury characters, the sort your pa ain’t got a chance against.
    ‘Who did this to you?’ she demanded; she did not realise her grip had tightened and her knuckles shone white with the strain of it. ‘Who?’ Her eyes roved over his poor battered face.
    ‘I tripped and fell, Phoebe. Nothing more. Calm yourself.’ ‘Papa—’
    ‘Phoebe,’ her father said, and she recognised that tone in his voice. He would tell her nothing. He did not want to worry her, not when he thought there was nothing she could do.
    Her gaze scanned the cell. ‘Where is the other man, your cellmate?’
    ‘Released,’ pronounced her father. ‘His debt was paid off.’ Sir Henry nodded philosophically. ‘He was interesting company.’
    Who knows who he’ll be sharing a cell with next?
    Phoebe felt her stomach clench and a wave of nausea rise up.
    ‘You are white as a sheet, child. Perhaps this travelling up from Blackloch Hall is too much for you.’
    ‘No. Really.’ She forced herself to smile at him brightly, so that he would not be concerned. ‘I have been taking very great care to keep my complexion fair. A difficult proposition with red hair and the summer sun. I do not wish to end up with freckles!’ She pretended to tease and managed an accompanying grin.
    He chuckled. ‘You have your mother’s colouring, and she never had a freckle in her life, God rest her soul.’
    Her eyes lingered momentarily on his bruising and she thought for one dreadful minute she might weep. It was such a struggle to maintain the façade, but she knew she had to for his sake. The smile was still stretched across her mouth as she took his arm in her own and led him back to the little table they had managed to save from the bailiffs. Her blood was cold andthick and slow as she pulled off the basket’s cover to reveal the punnet